


out of the frying pan

by rachelwrites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Memory Loss, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27918484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelwrites/pseuds/rachelwrites
Summary: one day, sirius and remus take a call from harry. he wants to know more about his father. (the other side of the fireplace convo in ootp)
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	out of the frying pan

**Author's Note:**

> obligatory fuck jk rowling. i was rereading order of the phoenix to cope with finals and this flew out of me. it might not be very good, sorry lol.

It was a relatively quiet day at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place before the fireplace decided to erupt into green smoke.

Remus sighed, looking at the piece of parchment he was translating. Maybe, if he ignored it, whichever member of the Order was in his fireplace would just go away and leave him be. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar voice ask “Sirius?” that he jumped and ran towards the fire.

“Harry!” he said, trying to hide the worry in his voice. “What are you— what’s happened, is everything alright?”

Harry paused a moment. “Yeah,” he said, “I just wondered— I mean I fancied a— a chat with Sirius.”

Remus’s worry turned to confusion, as he stood up from where he was kneeling by the fireplace. “I’ll call him,” he said, “He went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again…”

Remus hurried out of the kitchen, fully intending to sprint up to the attic when he found Sirius at the foot of the stairs with a broom in hand. The sight was so shocking, Remus was forced to entirely put aside his original purpose. “Pads, what on _earth_ are you doing?” he asked.

Sirius shrugged. “I couldn’t find Kreacher, so I figured I better not waste the whole day looking for that ungrateful excuse for a house elf.”

“You look cute,” Remus said. Once he’d realized what he said, a faint blush spread across his cheeks.

“Thanks,” Sirius said, almost bashful. They stared at each other for a moment before Sirius asked, “So what did you come out here to tell me?”

Remus slapped the palm of his head to his forehead in frustration. “Oh right!” he said. “We have Harry in the fireplace.”

Sirius’s smile stretched into an expression of worry. “Well, then what are we waiting here for!” he said, grabbing Remus by the shoulders and turning him around, proceeding to push him back into the dining room. Once they’d reentered the room, Sirius took long strides to reach the fireplace and quickly crouched down to be on eye level with his godson. “What is it?” Sirius asked, as Remus caught up and knelt down beside him. “Are you all right? Do you need help?”

“No,” Harry said softly, “it’s nothing like that… I just wanted to talk… about my dad…” The boy trailed off into an awkward silence. Remus looked at Sirius in surprise, seeing his own emotion echoed on the other man’s face. Sirius turned back to Harry, waiting for him to begin.

Harry quickly started telling them about looking in Snape’s Pensieve, a memory that Remus remembered well. One glance at Sirius let him know that he remembered it too. It wasn’t every day that one of your friends was called a slur by someone she felt close too, after all. Harry wrapped up the story, looking at the two of them expectantly.

“I wouldn’t like you to judge your father on what you saw there Harry,” Remus began, slowly and quietly. “He was only fifteen—”

“ _I’m_ fifteen!” Harry shouted in response.

Remus turned to Sirius for assistance. “Look, Harry,” Sirius said placatingly, clearly trying to calm his godson, “James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can’t you?” Sirius paused for a moment before continuing. “I think James was everything Snape wanted to be— he was popular, he was good at quidditch, good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and James— whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry—he always _hated_ the Dark Arts.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “but he attacked Snape for no good reason, just because—well, just because you said you were bored.” Harry finished, sounding a little embarrassed and apologetic.

Sirius ducked his head. “I’m not proud of it,” he responded quickly.

Remus looked at Sirius before turning back to Harry. “Look, Harry, what you’ve got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did—everyone thought they were the height of cool—if they did get a bit carried away—”

“If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean,” Sirius said with a grin, cutting Remus off. Remus smiled at him fondly.

“He kept messing up his hair,” Harry interrupted, sounding a little pained.

They both looked at Harry and then back to each other, and immediately burst out into laughter.

“I’d forgotten he used to do that!” Sirius said affectionately, clutching his stomach.

Remus grinned and turned towards Harry again. “Was he playing with the Snitch?” he asked eagerly.  
  


“Yeah,” Harry said, looking confused at glee evident on Remus and Sirius’s faces. “Well… I thought he was a bit of an idiot.”

“Of course he was an idiot!” said Sirius. “Well— not Moony so much.” Sirius looked at him affectionately, causing Remus to blush and shake his head.

“Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?” he asked Sirius. “Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?”

Sirius shrugged. “Yeah, well, you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes. That was something.”

“And he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!” Harry said, clearly wanting to unload all that was on his mind.

“Oh, well,” Sirius said, “he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around. He couldn’t stop himself showing off whenever he got near her.”

There was a pause before Harry continued. “How come she married him?” Harry sounded miserable as he asked the question. “She hated him.”

“Nah,” Sirius said, grinning, no doubt thinking about how very much Lily had cared about James, “she didn’t.”

Harry looked confused and Remus took it as an opportunity to fill in the gaps. “She started going out with him in seventh year—”

“Once James had deflated his head a bit,” Sirius interrupted.

Remus sighed and kept speaking. “And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it.”

“Even Snape?” Harry asked.

Remus flinches a little. “Well,” he said slowly, “Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?”

Harry looked between the two men inquisitively. “And my mum was okay with that?”

“She didn’t know too much about it, to tell you the truth,” Sirius said. “I mean, James didn’t take Snape out on daters with her and then jinx him in front of her, did he?” Sirius frowned when he saw that Harry still looked unconvinced. “Look,” he said, “your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry said with a sigh. “I just never thought I’d feel sorry for Snape.”

Something had been nagging at the back of Remus’s head the entire conversation and he finally realized what it was. “Now that you mention it,” he said, his brow furrowing slightly, how did Snape react when he found you’d seen all this?”

Harry’s face remained neutral. “He told me he’d never teach me Occlumency again,” Harry said, indifferently. “Like that’s a big disappointment—”

“He _what_?” Sirius roared, interrupting his godson and causing him to jump. Remus felt his heart clench thinking about why Harry had reacted that drastically.

“Are you serious, Harry?” Remus said quickly, thinking it better to cut Sirius off. “He’s stopped giving you lessons?”

Now that he’d calmed, Harry seemed confused by their response. “Yeah, but it’s okay. I don’t care, it’s a bit of a relief to tell you the—”

“I’m coming up there to have a word with Snape!” Sirius shouted, starting to stand up. Remus put a hand on his shoulder and gather all his strength the push the man down.

“If anyone’s going to tell Snape, it’ll be me.” Remus said firmly, giving Sirius a pointed look. “But Harry, first of all, you’re to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons—when Dumbledore hears—”

“I can’t tell him that, he’ll kill me!” Harry said, outraged. “You didn’t see him, when we got out of the Pensieve—”

“Harry, there is nothing so important as you learn Occlumency!” Remus said, using his professor voice with Harry for the first time since he left Hogwarts. “Do you understand me? Nothing!”

“Okay, okay,” Harry said, looking thoroughly annoyed. “I’ll… I’ll try and say something to him… but it won’t be…” Harry trailed off, a flash of terror in his eyes. “Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?”

Sirius looked confused. “No,” he said, glancing behind him, “it must be somebody on your end.”

Harry’s face took on a pained and frightened expression. “I’d better go!” he said hastily, before disappearing from the fireplace.

Sirius and Remus continued staring at the fire, now returned to its regular orange color, for a beat. “Well,” Sirius said, leaning back, “that was quite an interesting conversation we just had with our godson.”

“ _Your_ godson,” Remus corrected.

Sirius chuckled darkly. “Not if I get myself thrown back in Azkaban for murdering that slimy git who refuses to teach our godson basic self-defense because he’s mad at _us_.”

Remus sighed and gave Sirius a gentle kiss on the forehead. “It’s his own fault if he can’t move past school, love. And I’d really prefer it if you don’t go back to Azkaban. Twelve years was quite long enough to be apart, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, his frustration melting into something much softer. “There was something else that day. We were taking our O.W.L.s, and we were laughing about something, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. I wish I could.”

“Question ten, Pads,” Remus said, combing through the other man’s hair with his fingers, “'Give five signs that identify a werewolf'.”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “Really? That was one of the questions on our test?”

Remus nodded. “You were the one who brought it up. Asked me if I liked it, and James asked me if I thought I got all the signs, and I said—”

“He’s sitting in my chair,” Sirius started slowly, “he’s wearing my clothes, his name is Remus Lupin, right?”

“Yes,” Remus said, stifling a laugh himself, “and then Wormtail couldn’t even remember all five…” he trailed off mid-sentence, seeing the way Sirius’s face had soured at the mention of their former friend, and decided to switch gears. “Pads, if you didn’t remember the question, how did you remember we were laughing?”

Sirius blushed. “Well, I thought you looked absolutely gorgeous that day. You’re absolutely adorable when you focus and I was just staring at you while you were checking over your test, and then we got outside and the sun was making your hair shine and, well,” he grins a little, “it was all I could do to not just dip you into a passionate kiss right then and there.”

“Oh yeah?” Remus teased. “Then why didn’t you?”

“Hmm,” Sirius says, “let me think. It had maybe been a month since you’d forgiven me for the shit I pulled at the shack with Snivellus? And, of course, with the added bonus of I had no idea how you were going to respond. For all I knew, you were going to punch me.”

Remus smiles. “I wish you had,” he said, “I was already absolutely gone on you. But no, you had to wait another six months for me to get _my_ head out of my arse—”

“That was a rather fun Christmas, wasn’t it?”

“Not the point,” Remus said, “but yes, it was. But think of all the snogging time our younger selves missed out on! They would be so disappointed.”

Sirius grinned at him rakishly. “Well,” he said, leaning towards Remus, “we better make up for lost time then, right Moony?” Remus smiled and leaned in slowly, fulling intending to meet him halfway, before Sirius got impatient and grabbed onto the back of his neck, crashing their lips together in a passionate but tender kiss.

When they finally broke apart, Remus was breathing a little heavily. “Well Moons,” Sirius said, “just as good as Christmas?”

Remus paused for a moment, pretending to think about it. “I don’t know,” he said, “definitely didn’t make up for the six months of kisses I missed out on. We better keep going.” Sirius flashed a dazzling smile at him which Remus returned in kind, and the two leaned in again.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment or kudos to show me you care! follow me on tumblr [remusloopins](https://remusloopins.tumblr.com/)


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